<nettime> M$ financial fraud [3/3]

["nettime's_roving_reporter" <nettime-l {AT} bbs.thing.net>]

   16)  What is the most disappointing aspect of this whole situation
   regarding Microsoft?  The sense of betrayal from having always having
   been a sincere supporter of Microsoft.  In fact for years there were
   three annual reports on a small table in my office for all to see.
   They were the future of financial services, I would say.  These were
   Microsoft, Intel and Charles Schwab. Most people today that support
   Microsoft only care about the stock price.  DP managers are generally
   a smart lot and they have to also be upset at the level of risk they
   are being required to take in order to keep their systems going, that
   is, sustain Microsoft's pyramid.

   Being ridiculed by the media is also disappointing along with being
   told I am arrogant, opinionated and incompetent.  Major media
   reporters like to cite leading universities and investment
   professionals. Me, I'd rather rely on my 4th grade math teacher who is
   a brilliant dedicated person that if not retired deserves more than
   having her retirement stolen by a company that is manipulating the
   education system and plundering teachers retirement plans all over the
   country.

   17)  Please explain the connection to the Keating Savings and Loan
   debacle in one sentence.  Pension funds are being plundered by junk
   stock as it is leveraged into the pension funds by an over reliance on
   unmonitored passive indexes, most notably the Standard and Poors 500,
   just as Keating used junk bonds to plunder the Savings and Loan banks.

   Many readers have had a hard time accepting this conclusion outlined
   in the original study and have become too focused upon stock option
   accounting.  Stock option accounting is but one earnings management
   tool which has resulted in this pyramid scheme, what can be called the
   cash generating component.  The fundamental vehicle for perpetrating
   this scheme is the manipulation of the index funds since Microsoft is
   taking far more than its share of the overall indexes.

   From a theoretical perspective, one might also argue that the Black
   Scholes option pricing model is a Trojan Horse being used by
   irresponsible and corrupt corporate officials to plunder the
   retirement system.  This is ironic since Myron Scholes won the Nobel
   Prize in Economics for developing the model. Of course its use also
   brought us the Long-Term Capital Hedge fund debacle in October of
   1998, an event that almost destabilized the entire global financial
   system.

   18)  What is your forecast for the economy and stock market, in
   particular, given your conclusions?  The economy is somewhat leveraged
   but still in great shape.  I am very optimistic that the next 5-7
   years will be a terrific boom time if we can adequately deal with this
   massive fraud and restore integrity to the markets.

   Microsoft has unfortunately convinced us that if their pyramid scheme
   tumbles, so goes the economy.  Again, more than half the stock is
   still held by employees and management and so now is the time to act.
   Fear of economic insecurity is a primary tool used by which Microsoft
   has coopted the general public and a technique used effectively in
   their Department of Justice trial defense.

   The study; however, clearly concludes just the opposite and projects
   the strongest economy we have ever known due to an increasing global
   demand for specialized products and services and our unique ability to
   meet this demand.  The problem in the next 5-7 years will not be an
   economic decline based upon fundamentals but rather how to find
   qualified employees. This is not to be confused with stock market
   performance which should be mixed at best given the extraordinary
   performance over the past two decades.

   Regarding small and mid size companies, especially those not in the
   S&P 500, this could be a great opportunity.  These values are of
   course being suppressed by an over reliance on passive index based
   investment based upon the S&P 500.  Smaller technology firms in
   particular could see improving prospects for product sales with a fast
   growing economy, both here in the US and abroad.  It is unfortunate
   that there are so few quality small cap mutual funds.  Both turnover
   ratios and fees are far too high and the actual holdings are often not
   small cap companies afterall.

   19)  Unused

   20)  What is the best way to reach you to inquire regarding your
   services?  Email me first and then we can take it from there.  The
   main thing in the beginning is to develop some confidence that some
   outside top quality advice may help you build or sustain your
   financial house.  That takes a little time but is rather easy to
   demonstrate if given an opportunity to comment on a specific portfolio
   given that usually it is easy to recommend a strategy resulting in a
   big reduction in fees.  Of course there are no guarantees with respect
   to investment performance, and given the performance over the last few
   years, most investors should be indeed prepared for a moderate decline
   in their portfolios.

   21)  What is your perceptive on Alan Greenspan?  Greenspan is
   competent and courageous enough to say and do the right thing, a good
   example being explaining the folly of investing social security funds
   in the stock market.  Most people still don't understand his arguments
   yet he is absolutely correct.  Like most clarinet players; however, he
   does seem to have a bit of that brash optimism typical of many
   clarinet players.  Few people realize that Greenspan started as a
   musician which was brought out in an excellent profile of his
   background in USA Today.  USA Today is a very surprisingly good
   publication with respect to finance and economics.  Even for a highly
   trained professional like myself.  Many of the other supposedly high
   quaility investment publications can dazzle with data but have limited
   substance.

   22)  Isn't your whole argument really a moral/ethical opinion on how
   corporations should be run?  Absolutely not.  Let's assume no one has
   any ethics or morals, that is not the issue.  The issue is a corrupted
   scorecard which is rewarding Microsoft as a big winner when it is in
   fact a dramatic financial loser that has erected a financial pyramid
   scheme that is the financial fraud of the century. Others that are
   winners are being denied the free market success they are entitled to.

   23)  You make outlandish conclusions with no hard facts.  Please do
   print off the excel spreadsheet and review the 2 charts, underlying
   assumptions and numbers.  These are all based upon SEC filed 10Q and
   10K reports.  Making you a competent financial advisor, economist or
   accountant may be unrealistic but let's look at one significant
   example of why the facts are about as hard as they come.

   Go to the SEC Edgar database at www.sec.gov and select Microsoft's 10K
   report for the year ending 6/30/99 that was filed on 9/28/99. Print
   off the report, which is 81 pages, and refer to the cash flow
   statement on printed page 63. On this statement is an item titled
   "stock option income tax benefits"  with the amount of $3.1 billion.

   What this means in plain English is that Microsoft's employees
   exercised stock options during 1999 with a value of $9 billion in
   excess of the exercise price.  This amount is included as ordinary W-2
   wage income to employees, even though they do not sell the stock,
   because the tax is triggered on the day employees exercise and take
   ownership of the stock.  This $9 billion in stock option wages to
   employees also allows the company to take a tax deduction for the same
   amount or $9 billion since the IRS views this as wage expense. Since
   Microsoft is in a 35 percent tax bracket, a $9 billion deduction
   results in a cash flow impact of $3.1 billion.  Simply put, Microsoft
   was able to pay $3.1 billion less in taxes by taking a wage expense
   deduction that is never charged to earnings.

   24)  Why do you like John Bogle and Vanguard so much?  What is your
   agenda there?  John Bogle is to mutual funds what Andy Grove has been
   to technology.  All top investment people have read his books, which
   are outstanding.  Sadly, many of these investment people now wave his
   book to prospective clients for credibility but then set up a system
   to plunder investors accounts in the form of excessive fees.  Vanguard
   is the best "overall" family of mutual funds and was founded by Bogle
   who has since retired.  I have no relationship with Vanguard's
   management and have never received any fees, either directly or
   indirectly, from Vanguard, even though responsible for significant
   transfers of assets to Vanguard.  It is troubling, however, that
   Vanguard is somewhat silent on this issue.

   25)  What is the impact of Microsoft being added to the Dow Jones
   Index?  The Dow is a share weighted index that results in Microsoft
   accounting for about  4.5 percent of the index.  If it were weighted
   based upon market capitalization, Microsoft would account for more
   than 15 percent of the entire index.  Frankly, a concern is that
   Microsoft is being added in a two step fashion.  Step one is to
   include them in the index and step 2 would be to change how the index
   is computed, that is, begin using market capitalization as is done
   with the Global Titan Index, another Dow Jones index.  You would think
   that the editors of the Wall Street Journal, those who make the
   decision, would have incorporated consideration for Microsoft's
   accounting practices.  Hewlett Packard was a good addition to the Dow
   yet  Microsoft is a sham.  Again, this is not because Microsoft does
   not have a lot of brilliant well meaning employees but rather that
   management has positioned the company as the financial fraud of the
   century.

   26)  Why are you so hard edged about the results of this study?
   Perhaps it is just frustration over the study results being
   manipulated by certain media.  It was particularly disappointing when
   The Wall Street Jounal interviewed me only to manipulate the study's
   findings in a subsequent article, specifically saying, don't bother
   worrying about stock option accounting.  It may seem harsh but why
   doesn't Microsoft just purchase the Dow Jones Corporation to clarify
   constituencies.

   It also seems clear that most in the media are accostomed to looking
   at pieces of the study rather than using a systems perspective.

   Please don't interpret this as me having a negative perspective of the
   media.  We have great media institutions in this country including the
   New York Times and Washington Post but even they will receive
   considerable challenges over time to their independence.  That is just
   the way our fluid system of democracy works.  Sometimes they will even
   fail and that is why feedback like this is so important.

   27)  Why haven't the investment media reported your findings?  Most
   business writers, although often with strong economics backgrounds, do
   not understand the language of business, that is, accounting.  They
   have been hoodwinked by Microsoft's PR effort labeling me as an
   extremist.

   During the DOJ trial the NY Times often referred to the lead
   government witness as Franklin Fisher, MIT professor.  It would have
   also been good to say that he is Chairman of a publicaly traded
   consulting firm, Charles River and Associates.  His firm's incentive
   is to generate consulting revenues and that is not a bad thing but
   simply labeling him as an MIT professor is bad journalism.

   28)  What about other companies, including Intel?  Why are you picking
   on Microsoft?  An extensive cross industry study was done along with a
   sharp focus on various segments of technology.  Again, many companies
   do have liberal stock option programs yet the issue is not whether
   they use similar techniques but rather the magnitude of its distortion
   on the overall financials.  Significant distortions do exist at Cisco
   Systems, Dell, MCI/Worldcom, AOL, Sun and Intel yet none come close to
   the gross distortion at Microsoft. It is so easy to focus on an effect
   of a condition rather than the condition itself and that is why the
   study focused upon the source of this massive financial fraud. That
   source is Microsoft and why they are referred to as the "pied piper"
   of significant financial fraud.

   Let's look at the hard numbers.  Intel's year end is 12/31 and so to
   keep a good comparison with Microsoft let's take the data for the 6
   month period ending 6/30/99, which happens to be Microsoft's
   year-end.  For this 6 month period, Intel took a tax deduction for
   option wages of $800 million which is roughly 44 percent of total net
   income for the period.  At Microsoft they took a tax deduction of $9
   billion or 115 percent of net income for the year ending 6/30/99.  An
   obvious criticism might be, Bill, you are comparing a 6 month period
   for Intel to 12 months for Microsoft and you are also comparing
   pre-tax expenses with after-tax net income.  The reality is that under
   the other scenarios Microsoft looks even worse.

   The key point here is that Intel's past earnings have significantly
   more integrity than those of Microsoft.  One quick question for all
   the investment people out there. Name the CFO for Intel?  Most of you
   probably don't know the answer because Intel is a technology company,
   not a quasi hedge fund financial pyramid scheme that is plundering the
   retirement system. We all know who Greg Maffei is, and our word
   spellcheckers even provide a little twister humor upon checking the
   name Maffei.

   The remaining future liability or stock option debt for both Intel and
   Microsoft could be the same number, let's say $60 billion, and still
   Intel would shine in comparison.  This is a future charge on earnings
   and has nothing to do with the historical unrecorded charges to
   earnings due to options already exercised and retired.  You can count
   on Microsoft trying to emphasize this remaining option debt and not
   addressing the much more important issue, that is, the completely
   bogus past earnings on which their stock price is predicated.  The
   future is uncertain yet the past impact is pretty darn clear given
   that the amount is reflected on the employees' W-2 wage statements as
   ordinary income.

   Many other fundamental issues make Intel non-comparative to Microsoft
   including gross sales, current market cap, margins, etc.  Rather than
   go into these now, they will be discussed in a future update.  You
   might notice that since the study has received considerable attention
   Intel's stock has indeed moved back up while Microsoft is beginning to
   stagnate.  Fund managers are obviously listening and responding.

   It is also important to note that Microsoft and many prominent media
   figures are trying to coopt all of us into thinking "everyone is doing
   it."  A year ago one prominent reporter for Forbes magazine
   interviewed me extensively, constantly trying to get me to focus on
   Intel, rather than Microsoft.  After all the hard work explaining my
   study, Forbes magazine published a glowing cover story featuring Bill
   Gates and emphasizing what a great company Microsoft is.  Very
   unethical journalism I believe and a clear attempt to pander to
   Microsoft's advertising dollars. You would expect more from Steve
   Forbes given his innovative ideas regarding taxation and presidential
   aspirations.

   It is noteworthy that Intel's new emphasis on the reporting of cash
   earnings rather than traditional earnings is disturbing and
   dishonest.  More important, however, is their ability to keep pace
   with Microsoft and not allow Microsoft's pyramid scheme to bury them
   financially, which it could.  I therefore salute Intel's creative
   attempt to contain the damage by participating somewhat more than they
   would otherwise but would also caution them to act responsibly and
   have the courage to bury Microsoft's pyramid scheme through product
   innovation and key partnerships with more open systems such as Linux.
   In addition, it is about time that Intel take on Cisco Systems to
   create more innovation in the networking area.  Cisco is the best
   example of a company seeking to emulate Microsoft's financial
   practices and has indeed constructed a complete financial sham of its
   own.

   Earlier this year a proposal was made to Craig Barrett via email that
   was passed around to several groups inside Intel.  Dealing with me is
   probably hard because I proposed a business which I wanted them to
   develop, allowing me to simply function as a board member and
   technology consultant.  This is mentioned for ethical reasons so that
   readers know about this.  The reason for the proposal was due to
   concern regarding Microsoft's financial pyramid and its potential
   effect on privacy.

   Sustaining the pyramid will soon require aggressively selling
   privacy.  We forget that this is the real number one product on the
   Internet, the sale of privacy.  That is a shame and might be another
   pyramid impact of Microsoft's scheme.  By shutting out innovation and
   making the honest sale of non-Microsoft software products and content
   very difficult, others have had to focus on selling eyeballs to
   advertisers. That is not a bad thing but how long can the sale of
   privacy sustain a business?  One need only look at Amazon.com.  They
   would like us to believe that they sell books and music but what they
   are really selling is a look at your home library and nightstand.

   The proposal to Barrett was to create virtual data banks so that users
   could store data on-line in a secure fashion.  Not just data storage
   but something akin to a "bank."  That is, something with significant
   levels of security, local encryption, etc.  The idea is that Intel
   could be trusted as a steward of senstiive information or privacy, we
   clearly can not now trust Microsoft because they have a pyramid scheme
   to sustain.

   29)  How did you set your goal of deflating Microsoft 50-80 percent?
   An assumption was made that Microsoft's gross revenues would grow
   indefinitely at 25 percent (very generous assumption) and that the
   firm would trade at a price earnings ratio or P/E of 50.  Also assumed
   was that they earned $1 billion over the last year, which is not true
   since they actually incurred a significant loss, another generous
   assumption.  The resulting market capitalization is $50 billion and
   this was then doubed just to give them the benefit of the doubt,
   resulting in a market cap of $100 billion.  This amount is 20 percent
   of the curent market cap of roughly $500 billion, implying a needed
   deflation of 80 percent.  Many will obviously criticize this logic yet
   a competent financial advisor would probably deem it uncomfortably
   simple and reasonable.

   30)  What advice would you give the Mac community?  Forge a strong
   partnership with Intel and Linux and focus on content and media
   services.  Apple should become a great media company, offering news
   and other services.  Hasn't this always been the Apple experience, a
   tool to enable creativity.  Get to the content, Steve.  By the way,
   Apple does of course also have a stock option program yet the
   distortion to the financials is minor compared to Microsoft.

   31)  Why don't you look at the way the government does its accounting?
   Look at Social Security.  Isn't this the way of corporate accounting?
   This is a cheap shot.  Are you not tired of seeing government
   employees kicked around just because we as citizens keeep electing
   incompetent politicians? We are so hung up on idealogy that we forget
   that this nation of ours is pretty down right complicated and we sure
   better have some top notch people in governement to make sure things
   run smoothly. Regarding Corporate America, most companies are very
   straight up regarding their financial reporting.  Sure there are
   problems but overall the system works and has integrity.

   32)  What advice would you give Microsoft's employees?  You live in a
   state with no state income tax and can keep 80 cents on the dollar due
   to the new lower capital gains tax rate.  More incredible is that
   since you have to pay the option wage tax when you exercise, you get a
   new tax basis.  Simply put, you already paid the tax and can diversify
   without a tax consequence.  Why not take that $2 million in Microsoft
   stock, sell it, put it in the bank and decide how to diversify later.

   It is also a tough reality that more than 80 percent of your wealth
   hasn't resulted from your product sales but was rather pilfered from
   the retirement system.  You may not want to believe that but it is
   true.  With all the turmoil in Seattle regarding public school
   funding, it would seem decent to be a strong supporter of such
   initiatives.

   33)  How do you do your research projects?  You also seem like all you
   do is talk about Microsoft.  A top down systems approach beginning
   with identifying global needs.  This is followed by a look at
   demographics, key industries, leading companies in these key
   industries, management background, etc.  Books such as John Nesbitt's
   Megatrends 2000 are helpful. Most important is approaching the task in
   an unbiased fashion.  For example, in 1995, after doing projects on
   bandwidth, telecommunications, wireless communications, etc. all roads
   seemed to lead to Sprint.  Few people know what a great company Sprint
   is.  The notion of comparative value is also used extensively.  For
   example, comparing Sprint to AT&T, Boeing to Allied Signal, Chevron to
   Exxon, etc.  Too often investors start with a predisposition toward
   one company yet by using the comparative value notion, one can often
   result in having a stronger portfolio.

   34)  How do you feel about securities regulation?  Many people in the
   tech industry complain that regulations are excessive, especially John
   Chambers of Cisco Systems.  Disclosure is preferable to regulation.
   For example, is it really that much to ask Microsoft to supplementally
   disclose the impact of its accounting practices, that is, the tax
   decutions not charged to earnings, etc and restate earnings.  That
   might chew up about an hour for a qualified accountant.  We often talk
   about the glories of the information age, yet if we don't have
   adequate disclosure, we greatly compromise the inherent benefits of
   having this greater access to information.

   35)  Do you think many of the mergers that are now occurring result
   from manipulating these financial practices, of which Microsoft is the
   most obvious manipulator?  Absolutely.  Is it not strange that the
   Internet has really empowered smaller firms and individuals to take on
   larger firms and at the same time all the larger firms, in particular
   banks, are merging.  How can Merrill Lynch possibly compete with
   independent investment advisors with respect to establishing a
   retirement plan when these advisors are free to recommend any
   investment company, for example Vanguard or Fidelity.  This freedom
   allows participants access to higher quality lower cost choices simply
   from being independent of the fee driven orientation of larger firms.
   In the beginning, Microsoft was a big part of this empowerment and I
   do sincerely appreciate the enormous contribution they have made.
   Since the proliferation of the Internet; however, Microsoft has become
   a significant inhibitor of this trend.

   36)  Why are you using MS Excel?  It is a good product.  Again,
   Microsoft has some darn good products, in particular Word, Excel and
   Powerpoint.  Where they fail is in the operating system and internet
   area.

   37) How do you see the current state of financial analysis?  Most
   analysts seem to be PR representatives for the stocks they cover.  A
   good example might be Rick Sherlund of Goldman Sachs, who regularly
   touts Microsoft's stock. In addition, there are far too many
   economists expressing opinions on companies' financial statements.  So
   when did economists, who generally have difficulty even reading a
   financial statement, become experts in financial analysis.  What seems
   even more ridiculous is that top business reporters rely more and more
   on these economists for commentary.   All professions generate a few
   good jokes, including economics.  This whole situation reminds me of
   the joke regarding three people who are stranded on an island but 5
   miles from the mainland.  While two of the three are trying to build a
   boat the economist says, let's just assume the water is only 6 inches
   deep.  Simply put, we could benefit from the media using stronger
   sources for financial analysis; otherwise, our economy may drown in
   corruption as integrity in the system is destroyed.

   38)  What would you say to George W. Bush?  Steer clear of Microsoft
   and don't even think about gutting the ERISA laws aimed at protecting
   the retirement system.  These are an important safeguard, not
   excessive regulation, and if they result in lawsuits against Microsoft
   for securities fraud then so be it.  That is how the system is
   supposed to work.

   39)  What specific actions would you recommend given the situation at
   Microsoft?  Most practical would probably be to initiate an
   international boycott of the stock with the hope that reduced demand
   would bring it down to less than 2 percent of the total Standard and
   Poors 500.  Thinking that market forces alone could accomplish this
   might be naive given the significant cash flow into stock mutual
   funds.  If enough people starting complaining to their CFO's, in
   addition to the large fund families, in particular Fidelity and Janus,
   that might cause these fund families to reduce their allocations of
   Microsoft stock.  After all, does Fidelity really want the risk of
   massive lawsuits due to potential retirement plan losses?

   It would also be good if key government agencies, in particular the
   Defense Department, initiated high profile announcements that they
   were abandoning the Windows operating system.  After all, with the
   well documented security issues, you would think that their energy
   could be better directed elsewhere.  Given Microsoft's behavior in the
   lobbying area, is that something the Department of Defense wants to
   risk dealing with in the future if they end up on opposite sides of
   the fence on an issue?

   Teachers and other government workers, through their unions, can also
   make a loud voice and demand that Microsoft be removed from their
   retirement system accounts.  In the end this will probably have to be
   such a grass roots effort given the intense political issues at the
   top level and significant advertising clout Microsoft enjoys in the
   business press.

   40)  What can data processing managers do?  This is probably also an
   important time for programmers to coach their data processing managers
   regarding the importance of abandoning the Windows platform for both
   economical and competitive reasons.  It seems rather obvious that many
   firms becoming dependant on Windows will ultimately compete head to
   head with Microsoft.  This would include financial services firms,
   media companies and distributors.  Data processing managers are
   usually good business people and should respond to these practical
   economic arguments.

   41)  Have you considered writing a book?  Many suggest this but as you
   can see, although a very competent financial person, my writing skills
   are limited.  If there is someone out there that would like to
   collaborate on a book, that might be interesting.  There is a lot of
   fascinating material surrounding this situation.

   42)  Give it to me in a few words?  Let's not be co-opted into
   thinking what is good for Microsoft is good for the country or as
   Micrsoft goes, so goes the economy and stock market. That is
   ridiculous.  We live in extraordinary economic times and the only real
   hurdle we face to igniting a whole new cycle of prosperity is
   deflating this dangerous pyramid scheme.   Microsoft has brilliant
   people but should a firm of 30,000 people be allowed to tie up half a
   trillion dollars in investment capital, especially when 80 percent of
   this amount is pilfered from the retirement system.

   43)  Mary Jo Foley of ZD Net posted a story about you on the Internet
   11/4/99.  How did it go?  We spoke for about half an hour and for the
   life of me I can't figure out why she did not disclose a single fact
   regarding the study in the article.  She used a lot of hyperbole such
   as "Parish vehemently denies", criticized me for being "closed minded
   to anyone who doesn't see things my way," claims I'm "out to get
   Microsoft," calls me "suspect because I am actively seeking
   opportunties to appear on radio, TV and trade show panels" to explain
   his "Microsoft-conspiracy claims" and that I am "doing this to make a
   name for myself."  Adding color does make things more readable but
   perhaps Mary Jo has seen a few too many episodes of the X-files.
   There is no conspiracy here, just a boring financial story involving
   the plundering of the retirement system by brilliant people who chose
   to apply a lot of technology to the financial side of the business.
   The basic message is, save the technology for the products, that's
   all.

   It would also seem an appropriate gesture of journalistic ethics to
   indicate that Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder, is one of the largest
   shareholders of Ziff Davis, according to a February 1999 press release
   available at ZD Net, when doing a story about Microsoft.  Most
   reputable news sources, for example the New York Times, regularly make
   such citations as standard operating procedure. The lack of such a
   reference does not imply a conspiracy but simply a lack of integrity.

   It is truly disappointing that Mary Jo did not report any facts so
   that readers could understand the study without having to link to the
   web site.  Key things like the fact that employees pay tax at ordinary
   income tax rates when they exercise stock options, even if they do not
   sell the stock.  Even though this is ordinary W-2 income to employees,
   and Microsoft correspondingly takes a tax deduction as wage expense,
   this expense is not charged to earnings. Why not say that this amount
   on which employees paid tax for 1999 was $9 billion and none of it was
   charged to earnings, even though net income was only $7.8 billion.  Of
   course this is completely independent of the remaining stock option
   liability of $60 billion.  Isn't that a valid piece of news and is it
   not at least interesting that no one has reported this, anywhere? Many
   employees don't even realize that upon exercising their stock options
   they can sell the stock and diversify without paying additional taxes
   because they get a new tax basis.  Imagine how much more financially
   stable a family could be, if upon knowing this, they diversified
   somewhat?

   Overall, I suppose complaining about the story is bad form.  It is
   exposure, after all, and for a media hound like me that's gotta be a
   good thing, right. And poor Microsoft, abused by a small independent
   advisor in Portland, Oregon. How strange this whole situation has
   become.

   Note:  This list of questions and answers will be expanded
   periodically, so please visit again and send in your ideas for
   expanding or clarifying the list.  I am not interested in being anti
   Microsoft or any other company but rather elevating a dialogue on this
   issue so that the free market forces can function.  Please respect
   that perspective and best of luck in your endeavors.

   The following related resources are also available.

   Right-click to download a Simplified Spreadsheet (Excel 95 format),
   <http://www.billparish.com/ms699.xls>
   with supporting data and charts.  If you download using Netscape and
   can't open the spreadsheet, send e-mail to bill {AT} billparish.com
   requesting it as a file attachment.

   Contact:  Bill Parish
   Parish & Company
   10260 SW Greenburg Rd., Suite 400
   Portland, Oregon 97223
   Telephone: 503-643-6999
   Web Site: www.billparish.com
   Email:  bill {AT} billparish.com



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